Homework Help:
Quick question about resolving force

I have trouble resolving force into its y- components. Dont laugh. Please have a look on the photo I attached. The force is perpendicular to the slop, and the angle of the slope is given there. And then, what I did is just dot(extend the force), and then use sin(angle) to resolve the force into its component. Of course this is not right, so, why this is wrong. why?

Staff: Mentor

I have trouble resolving force into its y- components. Dont laugh. Please have a look on the photo I attached. The force is perpendicular to the slop, and the angle of the slope is given there. And then, what I did is just dot(extend the force), and then use sin(angle) to resolve the force into its component. Of course this is not right, so, why this is wrong. why?

where did i mess up? horizontal is 36 degree, and cos 36 will give x, and sin 36 will give y. but why this is not right?

The last quote is pretty close to the answer. Now you just have to put an x-y coordinate system on the drawing (like with +x pointing right and +y pointing up), and give the x and y components of that vector in (x,y) coordinates.